TV Viewing Round Up – December 2000
Programmes The month was marked by the run-up to Christmas as channels pulled out all the stops to produce a strong festive line-up. BBC1 continued its ratings war with rival ITV into the season of goodwill by announcing a winter programming budget of £158m, including a massive £42m for the two-week Christmas period.
Its Christmas Day line-up, which included Titanic and two episodes of Eastenders, was not enough to see off the competition however. ITV claimed victory for the second year running, taking a 40.2% average audience share during peak time (18:00-22:30). Coronation Street was its top programme, watched by 13.7m, while 11.1m tuned into the later edition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?.
Titanic failed to perform as expected; it was watched by an audience of 9.9m, making it the sixth most popular programme during Christmas Day. But the Corporation was claiming outright victory across the day, with BBC1 taking a 37.8% share of the audience overall compared to 35.1% across the ITV network.
Earlier in the month, one of the highlights of ITV’s winter schedule, Ask the Prime Minister, in which Tony Blair was grilled by a studio audience, was a disappointment for the network. It managed to pull in only 5.2m viewers.
Viewing Of the terrestrial stations, only BBC2 managed to scrape an increase in its average hours and minutes total during December. In a year on year analysis, BBC2 rose 0.6%; it was watched for an average 3 hours and 2 minutes across the period. BBC1 fell by 11.8% during the period and was watched for an average 7 hours 45 minutes.
Viewing of non-terrestrial channels continued to increase, however. “Other” channels were watched for an average 5 hours and 5 minutes, a rise of 24.5%.
Hours & Minutes
| Month | BBC1 | BBC2 | ITV | C4/S4C | Channel 5 | Others |
| Dec-2000 | 7:45 | 3:02 | 8:10 | 2:52 | 1:28 | 5:05 |
| Dec-1999 | 8:47 | 3:01 | 8:31 | 2:53 | 1:27 | 4:07 |
| % Change | -11.8 | 0.6 | -4.1 | -0.6 | -1.1 | 24.5 |
BBC2 was also the only terrestrial channel to improve its share of viewing, rising 0.2% compared to last year, to a 10.7% share. BBC1 and ITV both slipped, losing 4% and 0.8% of their viewing share respectively, while there was no change for Channel 4 and Channel 5.
The highest growth came from non-terrestrial channels which increased their share of viewing by 3.7% over the period. They now take 18% of the overall viewing share.
Viewing Share
| Month | BBC1 | BBC2 | ITV | C4/S4C | Channel 5 | Others |
| Dec-2000 | 26.5 | 10.7 | 28.8 | 10.1 | 5.1 | 18.0 |
| Dec-1999 | 30.5 | 10.5 | 29.6 | 10.1 | 5.1 | 14.3 |
| % Point Change | -4.0 | 0.2 | -0.8 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 3.7 |
BBC1 had a bad month in terms of viewing share by franchise area, with all areas showing significant falls. Worst affected was the West Country, which slipped 5.1% points in a year on year analysis.
Share By Franchise Area
| Franchise Area | BBC1 | YoY Point Ch | BBC2 | YoY Point Ch | ITV | YoY Point Ch | C4/S4C | YoY Point Ch | Channel 5 | YoY Point Ch | Others | YoY Point Ch |
| London (Wkdy & Wknd) | 27.9 | -3.5 | 11.4 | 0.7 | 24.8 | -0.8 | 9.9 | 0.1 | 5.6 | -0.3 | 20.4 | 3.8 |
| Midlands (Central) | 27.2 | -2.2 | 10.4 | 0.4 | 29.3 | -0.6 | 9.8 | 0.7 | 6.7 | 0.1 | 16.5 | 1.6 |
| North West (Granada) | 26.8 | -2.4 | 9.7 | 0.2 | 29.2 | -2.2 | 9.3 | 0.1 | 5.1 | 0.1 | 19.9 | 4.3 |
| Yorkshire | 26.5 | -3.6 | 10.2 | 0.1 | 31.9 | -1.1 | 11.3 | 1.5 | 5.9 | -0.2 | 14.1 | 3.3 |
| Central/North Scotland | 25.7 | -1.5 | 10.0 | -0.2 | 28.5 | 0.5 | 10.7 | -0.3 | 6.2 | -0.3 | 18.9 | 1.8 |
| Wales & West (HTV) | 29.9 | -3.2 | 11.0 | 0.2 | 27.6 | -2.5 | 8.4 | -1.4 | 3.8 | 0.0 | 19.4 | 7.0 |
| South & South East & Channel Islands | 28.7 | -4.4 | 12.5 | 0.5 | 29.1 | -1.3 | 10.5 | -0.2 | 1.4 | 0.4 | 17.8 | 4.9 |
| North East (Tyne Tees) | 24.7 | -4.2 | 10.0 | -0.1 | 30.5 | 0.3 | 9.6 | 0.2 | 5.5 | 0.0 | 19.7 | 3.9 |
| East (Anglia TV) | 28.4 | -4.2 | 10.4 | 0.1 | 29.4 | -0.1 | 10.6 | 1.3 | 3.0 | 0.2 | 18.3 | 2.9 |
| South West (West Country) | 31.0 | -5.1 | 12.5 | 0.6 | 30.8 | -0.3 | 11.7 | -0.4 | 2.3 | -0.1 | 11.6 | 5.2 |
| Ulster (UTV) | 24.4 | -1.3 | 9.3 | 0.4 | 31.6 | -0.7 | 9.2 | -0.2 | 3.1 | -0.1 | 22.5 | 2.0 |
| Border | 25.3 | -4.8 | 10.7 | 0.3 | 33.8 | -0.7 | 10.2 | -0.6 | 2.9 | 0.3 | 17.2 | 5.6 |
Ratings BBC1 also had a bad month ratings-wise with all audiences recording falls in peaktime ratings. The worst performance during December came from Women which fell 3 percentage points to a peaktime rating of 13.5%.
ITV, meanwhile, saw good growth in its peaktime performance over the period, increasing its share across all categories with the exception of Housewives with Children, which slipped 0.1% points.
Channel 5 and BBC2 saw increases across the board, with Housewives and ABC1 Adults the best performers during the month.
Network Ratings – Mon-Sun 8pm-11pm
| Station | Day | Adults | YoY Ch | Men | YoY Ch | Women | YoY Ch | Hwives | YoY Ch | Hswvs/Ch | YoY Ch | ABC1 Adults | YoY Ch |
| BBC1 | Mon-Sun | 12.6 | -2.6 | 11.8 | -1.9 | 13.5 | -3.0 | 14.2 | -2.9 | 13.1 | -2.8 | 12.9 | -2.8 |
| BBC2 | Mon-Sun | 4.4 | 0.1 | 4.8 | 0.4 | 4.1 | 0.0 | 4.8 | 0.1 | 3.4 | 0.1 | 5.0 | 0.1 |
| ITV | Mon-Sun | 16.0 | 0.7 | 13.6 | 0.1 | 18.3 | 1.3 | 18.7 | 1.1 | 15.9 | -0.1 | 13.5 | 0.2 |
| Channel 4 | Mon-Sun | 4.0 | -0.2 | 3.9 | -0.2 | 4.2 | -0.1 | 4.5 | -0.1 | 4.2 | -0.3 | 4.3 | 0 |
| Channel 5 | Mon-Sun | 2.5 | 0.1 | 2.7 | 0.1 | 2.3 | 0.0 | 2.7 | 0.1 | 2.1 | -0.1 | 1.8 | 0.1 |
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